This topic would be to list all small or bigger thing that could be done to improve the already good Picade :)

My first point would be on the Raspberry Pi mounting itself, mouting on the door is not a big deal, but the current hole layout is for a bare rPi, it’s not possible to put the Pi in a box and expecially a PiBow, and as Pimoroni only sell rPi with a pibow case… We will just sit with a useless case ;)
I would be nice to be able to use directly a Pibow with the Picade :)

Another thing that I think could be improved it the way the picade PCB is mounted, it would me better if washer or better spacer would be put between the panel and the board, at least it will prevent accidental bend on the PCB.
The same for the LCD buttons PCB, mine was quite hard to put as the 12mm is a bit short, and the hole is just too tight to have the screw enter them correctly, I had to somwhat tap the PCB before beeing able to mount it.

Yeah that’s may sounds I’m not happy with my Picade, because in fact I am really happy about it!
I just want to get it even better for everyone :)

With the mounting on the back, the reason that it’s the Pi mounting is so people aren’t forced to pay the extra £13 for another case. :)
That said there’s no reason mounting holes for the Pibow couldn’t be put on there as well in the future! In the mean time, you could convert your empty Pibow case into some sort of excuse to show off your newly built Picade to people.
To do this, start leaving your empty Pibow case around the house, at friend’s houses, basically everywhere. Then when people go what is this? Grab your Picade throw it down and start gaming next to them. Shouting optional.

The button PCB for the screen, seem to have M3.8 holes (which isn’t a thing), clearly meant to be M4. If you twist the bolts in you can fit them in, it’s snug but they fit. The alternative would be M3 and then the button board would have a bit of movement. We’re looking into it, and hopefully the holes will be slightly larger in the future. :)

For the Picade PCB washers or another set of nuts acting as washers would be helpful. Or some sort of double sided push fit mount to help get the PCB in more easily.

What do people think about lights (neopixels, LEDs, etc) behind the marque, buttons or joystick? If some sort of mod mounting kit was supplied.

LEDs on the button, I’m not sure , but on the marquee I’m completely in :) Neopixel would be the most simpler as it only need a few IOs.

Another mod/kit that could be supplied is a small power supply that would provide a USB port for the Pi/BBB/Whatever and be used to power the lights and/or the screen, there is a lot of addon that could be made in fact :)

For the Picade PCB we talked about push-fit nylon stand-offs, but I don’t know if they would work or be any good. If nothing else, the M3 bolts are really secure.

The B+/Pi2 Coupe can actually still be mounted with M2.5 bolts through the Pi’s mounting holes. The Coupe has holes here too, so you can either mount the base plate of the Coupe with some short bolts, or mount the whole thing with longer bolts.

The larger PiBow also has holes for the Pi mounting holes, if I’m not mistaken, so it should be possible to use M2.5 bolts again. I’ll see about making these available.

Actually, some 2.5mm Nylon standoffs might work well here, too. I’ll have a dig through our fixtures and fittings box to see what’s possible.

When mine arrives, I will probably attempt to mount the Pi+Coupe to the back door if I can find some M2.5 bolts. However does the Picade kit come with bolts to mount the Pi on it’s own if I decide against using the case?

About mounting the pibow case, I got a pibow coupe and simply left the very bottom clear plate off and used the supplied nylon bolts to secure it to the picade door. The door basically acts in the same way the bottom piece would and the bolts are the perfect length.

Having fun tinkering with my picade - I replaced the artwork and put a light behind the marquee, and an additional blanking panel to stop it shining down on the screen, I also fitted a powered USB hub inside to power the light/screen from a separate psu.

But the one thing I’d improve is those two nuts and bolts that hold the control panel down.

They are fiddly the first time you fit the control panel (because you can’t see what you are doing inside the case) but since then I’ve had the control panel off to check the speaker connections on the picade board, to change the artwork, to fix a loose joystick connection, and will be removing it again to change the buttons.

How about some sort of clamp release mechanism inside the case to release the control panel, rather than it being screwed down?

On my bartop machine I used magnets to hold down the control panel but that doesn’t work too well when a over vigorous player uses it - so a clamp mechanism is preferable.

Just an idea, perhaps the hassle of refixing the control panel every time was a design decision to focus my mind on making all my changes at the same time?!

I also agree with the difficulty in changing micro SD card, however that’s not something I intend to do very often.

I used a 12v DC 5A power supply (just in case I want to later change the screen for a 12.1" in the future). This is fed to the ATXRasPi through a car 12v to 5v converter capable of supplying 3A. The ATXRasPi is used to control the power to the Pi from a push switch on the side of the cabinet. The homemade PCB on the right hand end of the Pi GPIO enables a script called from the menu to activate the ATXRasPi in the same way as pressing the switch.

The Picade can then either be shutdown / rebooted from this switch or from the emulation station menu.

I replaced the supplied audio cable with a shielded one and the sound is perfect unless you turn it up to over 22 (i currently have it set at 15) then there is some slight white noise.